


The Ambush

by starman_25



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst I guess, Blood and Injury, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Gore, Graphic Description of Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Loss of Limbs, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:10:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starman_25/pseuds/starman_25
Summary: Our junker boys get ambushed in the desert and it goes very poorly. Junkrat is left with one less limb and Roadhog is left to pick up the pieces.





	1. Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Junkrat is probably around 20 or 21 in this fic. I figure that by the time Overwatch is happening, Roadhog and Junkrat have been together for a couple of years so they were both younger when they were back in Australia.

The scream pierced through Roadhog’s ears and hit him right in the heart. It was a truly terrible sound, the kind only made when someone’s experienced pain more horrific than any they’d experienced before. It wasn’t the sound that really bothered Roadhog, he’d heard it countless times before while killing his enemies, but who was making it.

They had been ambushed by a group of six junkers while camping in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere was one of the worst places to be in Australia and they had both been extra careful but somehow the junker gang had gotten the best of them. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. The two of them could easily handle six guys but something had very clearly gone wrong and Roadhog wasn’t sure as to what yet. Junkrat had gone down and was still screaming his head off not far from Roadhog. The kid was resilient though, as there were still bombs going off and men exploding away from where Roadhog had to assume Junkrat was. Roadhog quickly hooked one guy towards him, blowing his head off then moving on to blast through two more men. One junker was left, but he was already running towards where they had all stashed their motorcycles. Usually Roadhog didn’t leave survivors but Junkrat’s screaming was a larger concern than witnesses at the moment.

Roadhog rushed to the side of the younger man, who was writhing on the ground, a thick pool of blood beginning to surround him. It only took the larger man a moment to realize what exactly the problem was. Junkrat’s right leg seemed to almost be rapidly dissolving; the skin was melting like candle wax off his body, white bone already peeking through the muscles which looked like gummy candy at this point. What the fuck could have done this?

“Chemical bomb,” Junkrat gasped.

Fuck. Of course those fucks would be stupid enough to make chemical bombs. They were as dangerous to make as they were to use, which is why Junkrat never messed with them. You could get yourself killed or missing some hands if you did a single thing wrong and they were so volatile that they could explode in your bag instead of your enemy’s face. As Roadhog now saw, however, they were extremely effective if you did manage to catch an enemy in its explosion.

Roadhog quickly ripped Junkrat’s right pant leg off and tied a strip of it into a tourniquet around Junkrat’s thigh. He might be able to save the thigh but at this point…

His thoughts were disrupted by a weak tug at his shoulder pad. He turned and saw his boss and his heart caught in his throat. Junkrat’s eyelids were heavy and his eyes had lost their usual brightness, his skin was pale to the point of being almost translucent, his lips were no longer in their state of perpetual smile but instead were pursed together in pain. He was shaking a little from the adrenaline and his breathing was shallow and rapid. He looked up at Roadhog.

“How bad is it?” he asked softly, clearly still in immense pain but trying to remain calm.

Roadhog looked back at the leg and sighed.

“Ugh fuck,” Junkrat shouted, startling Roadhog. “I’ve heard that fuckin’ sigh before. Fuck.” He leaned his head back and Roadhog saw tears welling in his eyes. He realized he had never seen the younger man cry before.

“If I don’t act soon, you’re gonna die,” Roadhog admitted solemnly.

“Fuck me. I really wish that was the first time I’ve heard that fuckin’ line. And I wish I could believe it would be the last…” Junkrat sighed loudly and gritted his teeth. He let out a howl of a laugh, “I can’t believe some idiot with a chemical bomb is gonna be the death of me. I always thought it’d be something a little more glamourous. I was at least hoping it would be the radiation that got me. But no. It’s some fuckin’ junker with some acid.” He let out another loud howl of laughter and Roadhog caught a glimpse of more tears spilling from the younger man’s eyes.

Roadhog couldn’t believe the kid’s strength. Any normal person would probably be a pleading to any number of gods for mercy and sobbing by now. But Junkrat was never a normal person. Roadhog knew that from the first day when he came to the one man apocalypse with a business proposition. From that moment on, Roadhog’s life had changed forever. He knew somewhere inside him that he’d be with Junkrat until the day he died. It wasn't supposed to be the other way around. Roadhog was supposed to protect Junkrat or die trying. 

“Is the pain bad?” He asked, strangely soft.

“Nah,” Junkrat sighed. “The nerves got melted a bit ago, I don’t feel much anymore. It’ll be a bitch once it reaches my bones though…”

“You know what I have to do.”

“Yeah I know.” Junkrat closed his eyes, getting paler by the second.

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”

“Ya think I don’t know that?” Junkrat waggled his metal fingers at the large man but the action drained him and went back to laying limply in the dirt.

Roadhog couldn’t stand to look at him anymore and the longer he got preoccupied with how Junkrat was doing, the worse Junkrat got. He went to grab what meager supplies they had in their bag. They were in the middle of the fucking desert, so this was going to be rough at best. He had to work with what they had, which wasn’t a whole lot. Luckily for Junkrat, Roadhog had done some medical work during his time with A.L.F. and he was pretty sure he could amputate the leg properly. He came back to Junkrat’s side and placed his tools next to him.

“Wait, wait,” Junkrat yelped when Roadhog was about to examine his leg. “The chemicals are still active, you’ll be in the same boat I’m in if ya touch em.”

Roadhog had almost forgotten, that was a good catch. He wouldn’t be much use to his boss if his hands melted off his fucking arms. Roadhog pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his bag and picked Junkrat’s head up with one hand to let him drink a while. It’s not like they had much in the way of anesthetics or even pain killers…well actually…

Roadhog had an idea. While Junkrat continued to drink, he quickly started to undo the straps on his mask and pulled it off entirely. Junkrat’s eyes widened a little at seeing the larger man’s face but he was too fucked up to really take it in. He took one final swig and Roadhog grabbed a fairly thick piece of wood from the ground nearby.

“Wouldn’t want you to bite your tongue off,” he mumbled.

“Please, you’d love that. Then I’d finally shut up,” Junkrat sputtered, coughing a bit. He opened his mouth wide, allowing Roadhog to place the wood in his mouth and bit down. Roadhog held Junkrat’s head in his large palm and fitted the mask around the man’s face. It was much too big on him but hopefully it’d still do the trick.

“Alright, here we go,” Roadhog said, holding Junkrat’s thigh with one hand and a knife in the other. Junkrat nodded and Roadhog’s hand swung down in a swift and forceful motion. He really didn’t want to have to cut twice. The younger man’s scream was thankfully muffled by the wood and the mask; Roadhog just couldn’t bear to hear it again. Junkrat writhed beneath him for about two seconds before going limp. Fuck. Roadhog quickly grabbed his wrist to check his pulse…good, he wasn’t dead yet. He must’ve just passed out from the pain. Roadhog was almost grateful. Now he could work without having to pay attention to the skinny little kid he was working on.

His calf had almost completely dissolved into the sand by now. All that was left was a bright white bone that was beginning to look like jelly. The rest had become a gelatinous puddle. It was all but a miracle that the bomb had only caught Junkrat’s right leg. The left leg had caught some splash back and there were some small wounds that Roadhog would patch after he was done with the amputation, but they weren’t anything major. Roadhog had severed Junkrat’s leg at above the knee but he quickly realized the chemicals were still creeping along the leg and beginning to destroy Junkrat’s thigh. Fuck.

He tore another strip of fabric and made a tourniquet for further up Junkrat’s thigh. He cut again, quickly breaking the bone and cutting the skin. Correctly stitching the leg was going to be a long and tedious process, and with the sun looming towards the horizon, Roadhog quickly got to work.


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junkrat awakens to find himself with one fewer limb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is slightly longer than the previous one and longer than I originally intended. It kinda veered off in a weird direction a couple times while I was writing. Junkrat wanted to be more angsty than I planned. Anywho, enjoy and let me know what you think! :)

The fire blazed brightly before Roadhog as he desperately tried to make Junkrat’s blood come off his hands. It felt wrong to have his boss’ blood on him, felt like he had done something wrong, and something inside Roadhog made him question why it bothered him so much. He heard a quiet moan from beside him and turned to where Junkrat was still asleep. Roadhog had carried him away from where the accident had happened and towards a rock formation where Roadhog had set up camp for the night. He placed Junkrat on some tarp they had sometimes used in the winter for warmth; he didn’t want Junkrat bleeding onto their only sleeping bags. It looked like the younger man was still asleep, just having a bad dream.

Roadhog’s stomach grumbled angrily at him so he rummaged through their things to try and find something to eat. All they had was a can of vegetable broth and some crackers. Usually that would be fine but with how much blood Junkrat had lost, he really needed something heartier. The kid was malnourished as it is and with today’s incident he was weaker than ever. If only there was a farm around here or even some animals, but this area of the desert was practically devoid of life ever since the Omnium blew.

Roadhog looked around, his stomach twisted up in what he wanted to say was hunger but what he knew was anxiety. Why the fuck was he getting so upset over this? He’d seen plenty of men take a hit and scores of them die. He’d killed more people than he could even count. So why was this bothering him so much? It wasn’t as if he cared about the kid. Junkrat had just hired him for a job. Maybe that was it. He was upset because he had been hired as a body guard and he had failed in his job. Sure. That could be it.

Then, his eyes fell upon the heap of five bodies less than a hundred feet from him. A sick and terrible thought came into his mind and he tried to force it out but he knew it was the only thing to do. Junkrat needed some actual food. Fuck. It wasn’t as if this was the first time either of them had had to eat another human being, but it still felt fucking awful and he hated that he had to do this. He knew that Junkrat especially hated it, in fact he swore he’d never do it again and made Roadhog swear with him. Roadhog looked over at the younger man. He was slick with sweat and his normally tan skin had turned white, his lips faintly blue. That was all Roadhog needed to see to make his decision.

 

 

Junkrat awoke with a gasp that quickly turned into a groan when he was hit with pain like he’d only rarely felt before. It felt like a bear was tearing his leg off with its claws. He tried to sit up but was smacked with a wave of dizziness and lied back down with a groan. What in the fuck had happened to him? He tried to think back. There was an ambush. Six junkers. Two had come at him while the others attempted, in vain, to take down Roadhog. One had pulled something out of his bag… A chemical bomb. They had thrown it at Junkrat and he had just enough time to take one large step back. It hit him in the right shin and… No. That couldn’t have been real. That must’ve been just a fucked up dream. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had a nightmare so vivid. It couldn’t have been real…

He reached with his flesh hand down to his right thigh, trailing down and down until… Bandages… Okay well maybe he had just gotten cut up, maybe he had taken a bullet and that’s why he felt like shit… He kept moving down until the bandages felt kind of wet beneath his fingers and his heart leapt into his throat. They just stopped. His leg just…wasn’t there anymore. It was just…gone. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. It was terribly, terribly real. His hands shook and his breath came in a rapid, shallow pace that hurt his chest.

Where the fuck was Roadhog? Had he just left him here to die…? No, his leg was bandaged. Roadhog must’ve done that since there was no way Junkrat did it himself. So where was he now? Junkrat was too dizzy, too disoriented. He tried to look around but the world kept spinning quicker than he could focus on it so he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hog…” he called weakly and in an instant Roadhog was next to him. The young junker reached out with his flesh hand towards the behemoth, who took it in his own.

“Stay calm,” he said, unnaturally soft, “She’ll be right.”

Junkrat wanted to nod but he felt like he might actually puke if he did that. So instead, he squeezed Roadhog’s warm hand and tried to breathe.

“She’ll be right,” Roadhog said again softly, stroking Junkrat’s hand with his thumb. “Do you remember?”

Junkrat nodded this time, the nausea beginning to subside. “Unfortunately,” he replied and shot a weak smile at the man sitting next to him. His vision started to clear up and he looked up at Roadhog. The mask looked unfeelingly back at him, but Junkrat could sense worry behind it. He tried again to sit up and winced.

“Take it easy.” Roadhog held him by the back of the neck, keeping one hand still in Junkrat’s. He pulled Junkrat up into a sitting position and made sure the younger man wouldn’t fall back down before letting go.

“Ta,” Junkrat mumbled.

“I um…I made some food.” Roadhog let go of Junkrat to go over to the fire and grab two bowls. He handed one to Junkrat along with a spoon. “Eat slow.”

Junkrat wanted to yell at him. Wanted to tell him to stop taking care of him, that he could handle it on his own. After all, he’s lost a limb before. He knows how to handle it. But Junkrat just didn’t have it in him. He didn’t have the energy to fight with Roadhog so instead he just took the bowl, unhappy with how weak his arms felt carrying it, and ate slow like the big man said. It was a bowl of what looked like stew and smelled like shit. There were large chunks of meat which immediately made Junkrat pause. He glanced around. No farms nearby, that’s for sure. Probably not a lot of wildlife either, at least nothing that would produce meat of this size and texture. He continued to eat. It tasted kind of familiar. Junkrat’s stomach twisted the way it did any time his mind tried to recall something he didn’t want to remember.

“Hog…” Junkrat spoke slowly. “What is this?”

Roadhog looked up from his bowl and sighed. “I had to. You needed the nutrients. I’m s—“

“You did the right thing,” Junkrat interrupted. He looked back down at his bowl and chuckled, “Fuckers kinda deserve it anyway.”

They continued to eat in near silence, except for the occasional grumble from Roadhog and groan from Junkrat. Roadhog insisted Junkrat eat double, which he reluctantly agreed to. He took Junkrat’s bowl from the younger man’s hands and cleaned it out before pulling more bandages out of one of the junker’s bags.

“I’ve gotta change that,” he grumbled, motioning to Junkrat’s leg.

Junkrat couldn’t bear to look at it. If he just kept looking straight up at the stars, maybe he could pretend it was still there. Maybe if he didn’t pay attention to the mind-numbing pain he could imagine that he was still whole, that he wasn’t half of a person. He could convince himself that this wouldn’t keep happening over and over again until there was nothing left of him to get blown up or melted off. Even looking up at the hazy cloud filter between him and outer space, he still felt his muscles tighten up and his heart started to pound loudly in his ears. Roadhog pulled the bandages off carefully but Junkrat still winced, causing Roadhog to snap up and look at him.

“Hey Hoggie,” Junkrat groaned, straightened up to look at the older man. “Whadya call a guy with no arms and no legs, who fell in a fire?”

“What?” Roadhog asked, not in response to the joke but in surprise.

“Bernie!” Junkrat howled with laughter. “Whadya call a guy with no arms and no legs, tryna hold up a bank?” He waited maybe a split second before delivering the punchline, “Rob!”

“’Rat…”

“Wait, wait, I’ve got more,” Junkrat laughed. “What about a guy with no arms and no legs, outside your front door? Matt! What about—“

“Rat.” Roadhog interrupted.

“What? You don’t like my jokes, Hoggie? I might as well make ‘em now. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I make it to 25! Sooner or later I’m gonna lose the left ones too and then where will I be? You’ll have to toss me into fights.” He laughed, thinking of Roadhog throwing him like a ball into oncoming enemies.

“Don’t talk like that,” Roadhog replied. He’d never heard Junkrat get so defeatist. The kid had taken bullets and broken bones and still kept fighting.

“Why the fuck not? Look at me, Roadhog. Look how fucking pathetic this is. I’m just some fucking junker kid who happened to get lucky and found something worth having out here in this fucking wasteland. Although lucky is a fuckin’ stretch cause ever since I found that damn treasure, everyone’s been on me taint every day. I thought cause of it that I was different from the rest of these fucks, but I’m not. This place is gonna keep taking from me everything I have until someone finally puts me out of my misery. Bit by bit I’m gonna lose myself. Look at this fucking thing!” He tensed his metal hand into a fist and grabbed the wrist with the other hand. “Look at what they’ve fucking done to me, I fucking hate it!” He started pulling at the prosthetic, trying to rip it from his arm.

“Hey!” Roadhog shouted and grabbed both of his hands. “I know you’re upset, but don’t be an idiot.” Junkrat squirmed in his hands, lip quivering and eyes wet.

Roadhog was right, after all. The chances of them finding another prosthetic that modern and advanced any time soon were slim to none. He couldn’t afford to damage this one in any way. Doing so would mean going back to something like his old prosthetic, which was essentially a glorified mannequin hand. Still, he felt the rusty metal rubbing at his skin where it connected to his arm and wanted to cut the rest of his arm off just to stop feeling it. Everything around him seemed too close and too loud and too bright; the insects and animals scuttling and chirping rung harshly in his ears, the fire beside him burned at his eyes, even Roadhog’s hands made his hair stand on end and his muscles tighten.

“Just…help me get it off,” Junkrat said quietly.

Roadhog nodded and started to pull the latches and loops that kept Junkrat’s prosthetic attached to his arm. The thing was rusted to the point that Roadhog was actually amazed it still functioned properly. He carefully pried off the sensory nodes that allowed Junkrat to control the hand. Finally, Junkrat was free of the arm and he let out a sigh, rubbing his stump with his hand.

“Ta,” Junkrat grumbled, folding his arms close to his chest.

Roadhog felt the need to say something to comfort the younger man. He had thought those same thoughts countless times before. He knew what it felt like when things looked unbelievably hopeless. Roadhog had never lost a limb before though, much less two. What could he possibly say to Junkrat to comfort him?

Junkrat suddenly let out a sob and for a second Roadhog thought he had hurt himself somehow. He wasn’t hurt, though, not physically, but he was sobbing and like everything else in the kid’s life it came in an explosion. It was a painful sound to hear, the sound of a grown man sobbing and screaming. Before he could think, Roadhog moved behind Junkrat and pulled the slender man towards his chest, careful not to disturb the leg so much. He wrapped one thick arm around Junkrat’s chest and Junkrat grabbed it with his good arm, pulling Roadhog closer. His whole body shook with every sob and his muscles felt tense against Roadhog’s chest. Roadhog stroked Junkrat’s sweat-dampened hair with a thick thumb. The two men stayed in that position for what could have been minutes or hours, looking into the bonfire before them and occasionally speaking. It was far more intimate than anything either had experienced in a very long time, but neither thought about it too hard. They just let themselves find comfort in one another and eventually drifted into sleep.


End file.
